So I stumbled across this article a while ago, lost it, found it again, and now I’m gonna talk about it a lil’ before I lose it again. According to some stuff at ComiCon 2020, we’re in for a boatload of new stuff come Holiday season 2020 and into 2021. I sortta kinda wish Hot Wheels was putting more focus into its 3 juggernauts – Star Wars, Marvel, and DC (I guess you could 3.5 that now and lump Disney in) but it looks like they’ll be branching out into a buncha new subseries as well.
Note: The “pictures” presented here are all sketches and all lifted from the original article over on cnet.com. I was originally just going to link to the article, but I had some serious problems loading and reloading the relevant pages.
Note 2: I have since found some “real” images of some of the vehicles mentioned, and have inserted them in lieu of the sketches where possible.
Star Wars
If you’ve been following anything Star Wars related for the past few months, you probably saw this one coming a mile away: a Character Car based on The Child, colloquially known as “Baby Yoda.”
Supposedly his little head will bob up and down as the vehicle “rolls,” which in and of itself is meant to give the effect that he’s hovering along in his pram. This is sure to be hard one to find; I can only hope Hot Wheels isn’t as scarce with the upcoming wave as they have been with the last several Star Wars releases. The Child is slated to drop along with some “other Star Wars characters,” according to the source. I’m down with all the new stuff but I really wish they’d utilize these slow periods to tick big dogs from earlier movies off the list. And Bodhi. Jesus we need a Bodhi.
But hey, try not to get too excited about this bundle of joy – it’ll be as late as Spring 2021 before we see him!
DCU
DC’s been in a bit of a hibernation for a while and I think we all understand, though I wish that in the meantime Hot Wheels would fill in some gaps like Scarecrow or Clayface or Ra’s or Man-Bat or a million other friends and foes I could rail off. (Kinda surprised we didn’t get a Batwoman treatment…) It looks like our next batch is coming (or may possibly be here in some places) and will pay respects to Wonder Woman 1984. So far it looks like we have our Justice League-era Wonder Woman, Wonder Woman in that Gold Angel Armor we’ve been seeing everywhere, and of course (a very pale version of) Cheetah.
It ain’t a huge addition to the Character Car DCU, but they are good looking cars. I can’t really tell if the “regular” Wonder Woman is different or not…I know at a glance she’s familiar, but that blue rear area can be tricky on some of her releases. In the past it’s been gray, almost black, and what I think is an extremely dark blue.
Masters of the Universe (He-Man)
He-Man was a little before my time but the waves of its success rippled through my early childhood. I’ve never really taken the time to get into it properly, but I have long appreciated the combination of sci-fi and fantasy – I guess it’s a bit like Star Wars with its setting. The toy line is extremely impressive with all shapes and sizes of figures with all sorts of functions and I have no doubt it would make a compelling line of Character Cars. The only problem is that He-Man doesn’t hold a lot of culturally relevant stock with anyone except those on the older side of nerdom.
He-Man
Skeletor
So far it looks like all we have is the concept art for He-Man and Skeletor, though it appears the series will span at least 5 cars with Man-at-Arms, Beast Man, and Teela joining the fray. He-Man looks a lot like a muscle car with a sword on the side, though I’m sure its difficult to convey his “features” to a car. I really like the cool colors on Skeletor, though I wish it didn’t appear to veer into that “rat rod” territory. I get it, the shape lends a sneaky, sinister quality to the character, though I would prefer either a more refined direction, like a hearse, or just going balls crazy with some kinda death machine full of skulls and guns and spikes, I dunno, like something outta Death Race or Twisted Metal.
Marvel
Well, we were supposed to get that Black Widow top-off back in February and I guess we all know how that went. Marvel seems to be picking up the pieces though, and along with Character Cars for the Black Widow flick, they’ve thrown in some for Falcon and the Winter Solider and some other odds and ends as well.
Taskmaster
Ms. Marvel
And these are the ones we really care about: Taskmaster, the Big Bad from the upcoming Black Widow flick, and Ms. Marvel, from….something…looks fairly cartoonish from the art on the card.
Rounding out the wave is Black Widow, Falcon, Black Panther, Miles Morales, and Captain America. None of these are labeled as “First Appearance” but I like to get a good look at ’em myself first. I had hoped that whatever the next Marvel wave brought it’d give us Scarlet Witch but it looks like S.O.L. again. Such a strange hold out…I mean they gave us friggin’ Rescue from Endgame and yet I still got no one for my Vision car to get all smoochy smoochy with. TF Hot Wheels.
Overwatch
Now I keep my ear to the ground but I’m by no means on the up and up with everything that’s hip and new right now, but…Overwatch…isn’t that, like, totes 2017ish? I mean I remember it being all over the place, but haven’t we cycled through quite a few games since then? PUBG, Fortnite, Apex Legends…? Whatever, I guess there’s always some degree of appeal to people in mech suits.
Looks like we’re lookin’ at another set of 5. From L to R we have: Tracer, Reaper, Genji, D.Va, & Soldier 76. I’m…ambivalent at best about the inclusion of Overwatch into the Character Car pantheon, but the concept art is decent looking and I’ll be interested to see how the final product turns out.
Rugrats
This is definitely an unexpected subject for a set of cars, though I guess like SpongeBob you have a relatively small number of very identifiable characters which can make for some very creative cars.
So far it looks like we only have 3 characters, Chuckie Finster and Tommy Pickles up top, respectively, with Reptar below. Reptar seems to me an odd choice, mostly because he isn’t exactly a character…more like a meta-character. If I had to come up with a 5-car set for Rugrats I’d bang ’em out – Tommy Chuckie Angelica Phil & Lil! I’m not really sure how the younger viewers see Dill, Tommy’s “new” younger brother, but for those around during the earliest days, Dill never quite got the foothold in the family that I think the writers were going for.
Then there was Suzie, a very strong 6th wheel but a 6th wheel nonetheless.
The overall artwork is decent, yet I can’t quite get over how closely the fronts are done to resemble faces. I’m also more than a little perturbed that Tommy is imagined as a literal dump truck full of literal shit. Yeah yeah baby diaper poo pee poo poo is “funny” but Rugrats was never a show that fixated on toilet humor. We deserve better. And so does Tommy.
Disney
These 2 just kinda popped up on the list out of left field, but the “Disney” banner seems appropriate enough. I’m assuming it’s a sneak peak at Season 8 or possibly even Season 9.
That’s a dead ringer for Snow White and I think she looks pretty much like what we’d all expect. The apple with the bite taken out of it for the hood ornament is a nice detail. Ooh, does this mean we have a shot at getting all 7 Dwarves as cars…? That would be kinda neat; they could be sold as their own “gift pack.” (I wonder if I can even name all 7…Dopey, Sleepy, Bashful, Happy, Sneezy, Doc, Grumpy…that’s 7! Awesome!)
It’s kinda hard to tell what sort of vehicle they’re shooting for here…it looks vaguely militaristic but so far I’m kinda diggin’ it! Oh and if you didn’t know, that’s Bruce. Still lost? So was I. He was in Finding Nemo. So yeah.
Sanrio
What the hell is Sanrio you ask? It’s something to do with the whole “Hello Kitty” world. This is yet another confirmed subseries featuring Hello Kitty, Gudetama (pictured below), and Keroppi (not pictured).
These guys are…ok. I dunno, that weeabo / fetish for all things Japanese never really hit me. I guess it’s cool that Hot Wheels is trying to get its tendrils into as many corners of nerdom as possible and I can appreciate that, but obviously that’s gonna lead to some of us feeling a bit ostracized from one subset to another.
Final Thoughts
I’m not necessarily jumping for joy over a lot of these choices, but I don’t hate them. I understand wanting to branch out into as many possible directions, though by doing so you do run the risk of diluting the fan pool so much that you have fans of one set or another instead of just “Character Car fans.”
Personally I wish they would stick closer to the roots of “nerdom” and collectibility rather than concerning themselves with certain fads – both past and present. Rugrats, for example is just over and done with. The original show is long since over, there are no current reboots or sequels in play, and peak nostalgia for the franchise has already passed. This is a collection we just don’t need right now, along with Overwatch and Sanrio. And if they want to keep something like He-Man going, then go nuts and give us more than 5 or 6 pieces.
Hot Wheels still has plenty to mine from Marvel, DC, and even Star Wars and I’d really love to see ’em re-center their efforts.
So what do you think of all this upcoming stuff? Exciting? Overwhelming? Are any of these IPs that you were really glad to see? Any that you can’t stand…? Let me know!
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